Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.
H. L. Mencken
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
H. L. Mencken
Age: 75 †
Born: 1880
Born: September 12
Died: 1956
Died: January 29
Autobiographer
Essayist
Historian
Journalist
Linguist
Literary Critic
Satirist
Social Critic
Writer
Baltimore
Maryland
Henry Louis Mencken
Overgrown
Thirty
Poet
Simply
Child
Children
Years
More quotes by H. L. Mencken
The real man lies in the depths of subconscious.
H. L. Mencken
It is only doubt that creates.
H. L. Mencken
The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle - a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him, he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism.
H. L. Mencken
Confidence: The feeling that makes one believe a man, even when one knows that one would lie in his place
H. L. Mencken
It is the mission of the pedagogue, not to make his pupils think, but to make them think right, and the more nearly his own mind pulsates with the great ebbs and flows of popular delusion and emotion, the more admirably he performs his function. He may be an ass, but that is surely no demerit in a man paid to make asses of his customers.
H. L. Mencken
The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse-that is, to grow more satisfactory to those who constitute it and less satisfactory to those who support it.
H. L. Mencken
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
H. L. Mencken
So few men are really worth knowing, that it seems a shameful waste to let an anthropoid prejudice stand in the way of free association with one who is.
H. L. Mencken
The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore.
H. L. Mencken
Evil: That which one believes of others. It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake
H. L. Mencken
I am against slavery simply because I dislike slaves.
H. L. Mencken
The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I am strong in favor of liberty and I hate fraud.
H. L. Mencken
The aim of New Deals is to exterminate the class of creditors and thrust all men into that of debtors. It is like trying to breedcattle with all cows and no bulls.
H. L. Mencken
Alimony - the ransom that the happy pay to the devil.
H. L. Mencken
Lying is not only excusable it is not only innocent it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. Without the ameliorations that it offers, life would become a mere syllogism and hence too metallic to be borne.
H. L. Mencken
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
H. L. Mencken
The effect of every sort of New Deal is to increase and prosper the criminal class. It teaches precisely what all professional criminals believe, to wit, that, it is neither virtuous nor necessary to suffer and to do without.
H. L. Mencken
Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.
H. L. Mencken
There are no dull subjects. There are only dull writers.
H. L. Mencken
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
H. L. Mencken